[meteorite-list] Radar observations of meteor events

From: Matson, Robert D. <ROBERT.D.MATSON_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 18:37:12 -0700
Message-ID: <7C640E28081AEE4B952F008D1E913F17040B3A57_at_0461-its-exmb04.us.saic.com>

Hi Marc,

Great idea setting up a site with radar data for some of these
orphaned falls. On the Lorton fall, there are also prominent hits
from the Norfolk/Richmond radar at time-tag 22:30:51 (cut angle
0.47 degrees) located between Springfield Forest and Newington,
and the Dover radar at time-tag 22:25:19 (cut angle 0.53 deg)
just west of Fort Belvoir.

The bolide itself was traveling NW to SE at a very steep entry
angle -- about 11 degrees from vertical. (This is based on triangulation
of images of the smoke trail taken from three widely spaced observers.)
I was never able to get a perfect match for all three observers, partly
because the images were cell phone images and therefore a bit blurry.
Suffice to say that the entry angle was steep enough that the exact
flight bearing is not that important. The strewn field (assuming one
was generated) will have an orientation completely dominated by the
high upper atmospheric winds at the time. (At 11-km altitude, the jet
stream was over 90 knots, and even down at 5-km it was over 40 knots.)

--Rob

P.S. Nice abstract at this year's Met. Society meeting, btw, on the
use of NEXRAD for meteorite recovery!

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Marc
Fries
Sent: Monday, August 09, 2010 5:18 PM
To: Meteorite-list
Subject: [meteorite-list] Radar observations of meteor events

Greetings

        So I've got a fair bit of practice at identifying falling
meteorites in radar data now, and a great deal of radar data taking up
space on my hard drive. I want this data used to actually collect
meteorites, but there's no way I can cover all that ground myself. So
I'm going to try something here, and see if I can put the power of the
internet to use to get radar data into the hands of people who will
actually use it to go pick up meteorites.

        I've started a blog where I will post radar data from prominent
(and not so prominent) meteor events. I've started with Lorton, and I
could use y'all's feedback on what you'd like to see in there. By that
I mean - go have a look, and let me know what other data you'd like to
see in the event writeup. Also, what other events would you like to see
posted? I'll be entering a few more in the next week or so, as time
permits.

        As much as I enjoy doing this, it does eat up a lot of my time.
I've added a "tip jar" feature so that y'all can send me encouragement
as you see fit. I think that strikes a nice middle ground between
spending next to no time at all on this work and actually trying to
charge people to use the information. I don't like either of those
options, so let's see how this works. I will also have to strike a
balance between dumping information on the internet and producing
scientific publications, but I don't foresee that being too much of a
problem.

        Have a look, and let me know what y'all think.

http://radarmeteorites.wordpress.com/

Cheers!
Marc Fries
Received on Mon 09 Aug 2010 09:37:12 PM PDT